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The Globe and Mail Published March 9, 2021 Michael Muraz/Michael Muraz Filtered sunlight penetrates enormous, floor-to-ceiling windows at both front and rear. As a sunbeam crawls across the herringbone floor, each chevron lights up as if powered internally. As glossy white kitchen cabinets ping light in every direction, the brooding, dark marble island acts as absorbent counterpoint. No matter, artwork over the dining room table John MacGregor’s swirls of sky blue, red, orange, and ochre create a happy rhythm that seems to respond to Paul Desmond’s soft saxophone as it oozes from hidden ceiling speakers. Just above those speakers, a secret, second-floor courtyard awaits a stronger kiss of sunlight before it can be enjoyed. Until spring arrives, however, the generous basement provides distraction via a home theatre large enough to charge admission. ....
The Globe and Mail Published January 13, 2021 Stephani Buchman/Stephani Buchman Ever since the public was conditioned by the pop art movement of the early 1960s to see mundane, ordinary objects as things of beauty – Warhol’s recontextualized soup cans or Lichtenstein’s comic book heroines come to mind – the concept of high-brow and low-brow coexisting, whether on canvas or in architecture, has been an easy pill to swallow. So, that the hyper-realistic paintings of ice cream cones, cookie-stacks, coffee cups, halved avocados and Hershey’s Kisses are illuminated by both inexpensive IKEA fixtures as well as pricey gallery lighting in Erin Rothstein’s art studio is rather apropos. ....